Chapter 17: Survival
Their rest was brief. Too brief.
There was no time to relax, no time to feel safe. The moment they had sat down, the forest reminded them they were still in it.
The snow continued falling around them, steady now, covering the remains of the caravan and the bodies of the monsters they had killed. The giant worm’s open wound was already filling with white. The eyeless wolf’s fur was turning grey with frost.
The grey-haired man was the first to move, pushing himself up with a grunt, his wrapped arm stiff.
"We need supplies," he said. His breath was heavy.
The thin prisoner looked at him from where he was crouched, shivering. "For what? We’re already dead out here."
"To survive the next hour," the grey-haired man answered. He didn’t look at the thin man, he looked at the sky. "To not freeze."
The man pointed toward the forest where the wind was coming from, where the clouds were blackest.
"The storm is coming. We don’t know how long it will last - one night, three nights. And we can’t travel through it without food, water, and somewhere warm to stay. No fire, no food, we die tonight. Simple."
Neither Danny nor the thin prisoner argued. They all knew he was right. In this cold, arguing was wasting heat.
The grey-haired man sat down heavily on the caravan’s edge and began treating his injured arm properly this time. The bleeding had not stopped, just slowed.
He tore a long piece of cloth from his already damaged clothing, from the bottom of his shirt, using his teeth and his good hand. He wrapped it tightly around the deep claw wound, layer over layer.
He winced hard as he pulled the cloth tighter, his jaw clenched, a hiss escaping his teeth. Blood had soaked through his sleeve, dark and sticky, but the bleeding had slowed to an ooze now.
When he finished, his hands shaking a little from pain, he looked toward the dead giant worm, its massive pale body steaming slightly in the snow despite the cold.
"We have food," he said.
The thin prisoner stared at him, then at the worm, his face twisting.
"You can’t be serious. You want us to eat... that? That thing ate people!"
The grey-haired man didn’t even blink. He walked toward the monster, his boots sinking, and cut a piece of its inner flesh with his chipped sword. The meat was pale white, marbled with blue veins, and smelled like rotten fish and iron. Cold steam rose from it.
"We don’t have a choice," he held the piece up, dripping. "We eat this, or we starve in two days. The horses are dead and frozen, the flour is snow now. This is the only meat for miles that isn’t us."
He threw the chunk onto a flat piece of wood from the caravan.
"We eat this, or we die. Pick."
The thin prisoner made a deeply disgusted face but said nothing more. He turned away, as if not looking would make it not real. His stomach growled loudly despite his disgust, betraying him.
The grey-haired man began preparing the meat, cutting it into smaller, thinner strips so it might cook faster, or at least be less horrible. It wasn’t pleasant work. The knife squelched.
The smell alone made Danny’s stomach turn, sharp and wrong, not like any animal he knew. But he was hungry. Very hungry. He hadn’t eaten a real meal since before the caravan was attacked. His belly was a hollow pit.
He looked away and continued searching through the wreckage, trying not to breathe through his nose.
The thin prisoner had taken on another task after a kick from the grey-haired man. He moved around the area, collecting broken pieces of wood from the destroyed caravan and fallen branches from nearby trees, dragging them with his chains.
He piled them together beside the remains of the camp, trying to make a pile that looked like a fire.
Danny watched him for a moment from the corner of his eye.
_Will that even burn?_
Everything was covered in snow. The wood was cold and damp and dark. The branches snapped wetly, not dryly. Even if they had a spark, this wood would just smoke and die.
Still, they needed to try. A smoking fire was better than no fire. Smoke was at least a little warm.
The thin prisoner rubbed his hands together hard before continuing, his fingers red and raw. "We need more. Much more. Dry wood from inside the caravan, maybe."
He kicked a small branch toward the pile, frustrated.
"If this doesn’t burn, we’re dead. We will actually freeze to death next to two dead monsters. What a joke."
Danny didn’t answer him. He had his own task, and he didn’t want to waste words.
Water.
The grey-haired man had tossed him a half-crushed water sack earlier. Danny was now checking what little water remained inside, holding it up.
He carefully lifted it and shook it. There wasn’t much. A few mouthfuls, maybe. Sloshing at the bottom, half ice already.
Danny looked at the others. The grey-haired man was busy trying to scrape the slime off the worm meat, his face focused. The thin prisoner was still gathering wood, now arguing quietly with himself.
So Danny began searching for more water, for anything to carry it.
He checked the wreckage first. He lifted a broken crate - under it, a small tin cup, dented but usable. He put it in his pile.
Then he checked the snow around it, digging with his chained hands. Every few moments, he found something useful in the mess that others had missed because they were too disgusted or too tired.
A torn piece of cloth, still somewhat dry because it was under the wagon.
A broken container, wooden, but could hold melted snow.
A small piece of rope, useful for tying.
Nothing was enough by itself. But together, maybe.
They needed more. Much more than a cup and rope.
Danny tightened his grip around the water sack, feeling the cold bite his palms. The cold wind blew through the trees now, stronger, pushing snow sideways. It cut through his thin shirt and made his tribal marks - just normal black ink arrows on his skin - prickle with goosebumps.
Snow fell harder, sticking to his eyelashes.
He looked toward the dark sky, now almost fully covered. The sun was gone. It was only grey.
The storm was getting closer, breathing on them.
And Danny had a feeling, deep in his gut, heavier than hunger, that surviving the night without freezing or being found by the wolf’s pack would be harder than surviving the monsters themselves.